| Although concentrating on 20/25mm Persians at the moment, I'm still keeping my eyes open for other stuff. Saw this lot on ebay, put in an offer, larger scale police force sorted. |
| Size wise they fit in nicely with the large scale monsters and aliens figures I seem to have acquired... |
| 42mm to eye level, 45mm to top of the head 44 figures all told, already blue so might just paint hands, faces, boots belts and weapons. 43 figures, £15 total, just under 35p each - I'm happy with that. |
| Finished the next battalion of the 1897 Russian force and think that should do for now. Touching up the British figures can wait a bit longer. |
| Infantry on the left are the newly completed ones. Nice thing about this army is that I didn't need to paint half of it! My total committment consisted of 2 infantry units, 1 cavalry squadron and 2 guns. |
| Left flank, only figure I painted myself if the gun! Gun crew, both infantry units and both cavalry squadrons are 'as bought' except for the bases! |
When sorting the Parade it was obvious a few 42mm figures needed some remedial work and bases completed. So I thought I would take some time out to do the necessary work.
| So for some reason I finished up painting a bunch of Russians from scratch... |
| So this lot are Irregular Miniatures figures painted as Guards in summer dress. The flag is my version of a Napoleonic Litov Guards Regiment flag - it serves it's purpose! |
| They join this lot I got off ebay a few years ago. At current current prices, this lot alone were worth the cost! |
| Also from that ebay order, I've completed/touched up these guns - they do have 6 crew but 3 seem to have gone awol for a while! The guns were simply given a quick spray and detailing - not all of the earlier paintwork is covered but to me it just makes the overall effect look better! |
Meanwhile, I've started another company/battalion/regiment of Guards - this one won't include a standard, don't think I really every group of 8 to have a standard!
From that ebay purchase. Just a few rifles to unbend, paint to replace and put them on bases.
| Original figures painted to a good standard |
| Not sure if it means that 2021 could include buying a few more Turks... |
These are the ones I bought cheap a couple of years ago.
| Finally got round to looking at the last two units... |
| I haven't done anything other than go over paint loss so they are still pretty basic. |
| This lot are obviously Russian! The horses had quite a bit of paint loss so I went over them with chocolate brown... not quite a match and looked patchy. Gloss over the top and on the models you can barely see a difference - but the photos look a lot worse! |
Meanwhile, after a week or so of doing very little on the wargames front finally got some casting done - hopefully I'll manage a bit more over the next few days. I really need to get some of the 20mm Napoleonics done!
| First off, started on doing some of the Prussian lancers. I haven't tried to add any other details, for example reins or buttons, etc, just kept them 'as was' and painted over areas of paint loss. |
| Bugler's a bit of a weird pose. Likewise, officer's sword a bit iffy. Other than that, they'll do. |
| And I haven't tried to look up if they are meant to be specific units. If I did, it would probably tempt me to add more detail! |
| In order to get everything in I had to push the army further and further back on the table! |
| 28mm buildings don't look too out of place size wise. Well, the bigger ones anyway! |
| Looking down the army from the right flank. Got more infantry than I'll ever use in one battle, could do with some field guns... this picture is a slightly different setup to the first two - I hadn't added the lancers at this point and the guns are separated. |
| A dozen infantry and five cavalry. |
| I'm trying to cut down as much as possible on detail, but increasing the command group to officer, standard bearer and bugler eliminates any time gains. |
| Now, the cavalry. Should have been a 4 man squadron one of whom was an officer. Then another officer to act as a general staff or possibly infantry officer. Then I only painted 1 officer... Horses I'm simplifying by not painting on eyes, blazes or stockings. The casting itself is simpler in the sense non of the figures have carbines... |
| The officer is from one of the artillery moulds. Need to overpaint the red on his bincoculars! Bugler, all-action pose and has a backpack. |
| Colour scheme is pretty spectacular |
| Horses cast well apart from the reins - not going to worry about that! |
| Almost didn't post this picture - it's not the most impressive view. |
| The 1st followed by the 3rd - think that should be enough German Hussars for now. |
| Simple models with a quick spray of paint, one extra piece of detail colour each then spray varnish - very toy soldier. I'll probably try a couple of different greens before I find one I like for the lampost. |
| The bush is a better scale fit than the lampost - which should do quite well with 28mm scale figures. However, they should both be very useful figures - and I'll probably do more bushes than horses eventually! |
| They paint up well and have a real 'toy soldier' feel about them. Couple of issues on vasting this first batch of horses - mainly bridles - but later horses coming out OK. |
| Must admit I found the scalloped edging to the saddlecloth hard. Time was I could do a lot better on 20mm figures! I didn't even try to do any of the fancy lacework... |
| But overall very pleased with these and can see quite a few hussar squadrons appearing in the future. |
| However, before that I thought I'd just set up all the Prussian Zinnfiguren homecast figures I've got including the ones I bought off ebay - it's building up to a nice little army. |
| This is the command group from the newly-acquired moulds - the officer is actually an artillery officer. |
| The light blue cross on the standard doesn't show up very well on this picture. |
| Bit better here. They've turned out really well though to get the standard to cast I had to use the mould with very little pressure on it - which meant a lot of flash. |
| So five new second hand moulds. |
| Naturally I had to try them out straight away. |
| My initial aim was to cast a cavalry squadron.... |
| Done... don't usually use officers, originally I just wanted to use the hussar as a hussar but then decided - why not have an officer for once? |
| 6 battalions, 7 squadrons and 8 guns. That Austrian cannon looks a bit lonely out there. |
| View from the back of the Allied line as the Prussians arrive! No particular battle suggested of course. I have neither the terrain or the figures! |
| View from behind the French. |
| The Prussian infantry pass the Russian and Prussian cavalry. |
| The British. |
| And the French. |
| Not forgetting the 42mm Zinnfiguren homecast Prussian infantry and reclaimed Irregular Russian cavalry. |
| Quite a quick, simple paint job. |
| The replacement gun barrels are, at best, wobbly and I doubt the bonds will last long - really should have drilled out holes for them to fit in. |
| Still, for a quick paint job on reclaimed figures I'm happy with the result. |
| These are the pictures I'm using to justify the colour scheme - the standing figure was the model for the coat colour (though didn't bother with the red collar, gave mine brass buttons) whilst the mounted figure justifies white belts... The helmet seems to match some infantry figures but theu're Dragoons - almost infantry! Taken from the Blandford book 'Uniforms of the Imperial Russian Army' by Boris Mollo. The figure is a closer colour match to the picture than it looks here. |